false statementRepublican-led Congress and GW Bush administration are strong on national security
by kathy@truthisbetter.orgLast updated 2004-07-24

Republicans voted against ending the debate on the Homeland Security bill to prevent it from going to a vote in the Senate in November, 2002, and then told voters during campaigns that the Homeland Security bill had not passed the Senate due to Democratic control of the Senate.

Republicans have consistently under funded first responders, critical infrastructure protection, and money to guard United States' borders. The states need this funding in order to protect America. Several studies have determined that America is not substantially safer than it was prior to 9/11.

In 2003, the Republican administration cut funding for the OpenBSD project, OpenBSD focuses on Internet security and has been called "the most secure operating system in existence" on numerous occasions. OpenBSD is an open source project so that the funding cut could prove detrimental to open source in general---not just OpenBSD---which will in turn prove detrimental to the security of the Internet and the world as a whole. U.S. dams that supply electrical power generation, railroads that supply coal to power plants, department of defense and other critical infrastructure become vulnerable if Internet security is compromised. See The Standard and OnLamp and A Safer Internet with OpenBSD articles on OpenBSD

The GOP Congress has provided only $250 million for port security grants (35% less than authorized).

President GW Bush has done many things to increase the likelihood of terrorist attacks against America:

Immediately after taking office, President Bush ended the 40 man CIA hunt for Osama Bin Laden that Clinton had begun.

President Bush ignored the warnings he was given prior to 9/11 by the Warren-Rudman report on Terrorism and briefings he was given by the CIA one month prior to 9/11.

President Bush pulled out the Special forces troops that were hunting Osama Bin Ladin and getting close to capturing him in Afghanistan, in order to put them in Iraq.

President Bush destabilized Iraq and opened it up to Al Qaeda activity, endangering our troops and the American people by killing over 7,000 innocent Iraqis and destroying thousands of buildings with U.S. bombs.

President Bush is refusing to allow the UN to take over peacekeeping efforts in either Afghanistan or Iraq, thus ensuring continued conflict and terrorism in those two countries and risking American lives.